A collection of top water news from around California and the West compiled each weekday. Send any comments or article submissions to Foundation News & Publications Director Chris Bowman.
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In 2014, Gov. Jerry Brown signed historic legislation
establishing a framework for California to begin managing
groundwater in an effort to curb widespread overpumping, which
had sent aquifer levels into rapid decline, left hundreds of
wells dry, and caused the ground to sink in parts of the
Central Valley. The law was based on the idea that groundwater
could best be managed at the local level, and it called for
newly formed local agencies to gradually adopt measures to
address chronic declines in groundwater levels. The legislation
laid out an implementation timeline stretching more than a
quarter-century, giving many areas until 2040 to address their
depletion problems. Today, experts and state officials say
implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA, is unfolding largely as expected. But while California
has made some preliminary progress toward safeguarding
groundwater, the hardest tests loom ahead.
After a prolonged stretch of record-breaking heat that scorched
Southern California and sparked wildfires, much of the state
will experience below average temperatures, drizzle and even
early-season snow this week. The National Weather Service
issued its earliest snow advisory in the past 20 years over the
weekend for portions of the Sierra Nevada. In Southern
California, where three fires have scorched more than 115,000
acres and burned out of control for days, the rapid cooldown
and higher humidity levels have already provided some relief
for firefighters trying to get a handle on the blazes.
Nearly every soaking wet winter, Llagas Creek around Morgan
Hill has flooded. Its rising, muddy waters poured over the
banks in 2017 and in 2009, and many times before that over
generations, damaging downtown businesses, homes and farm
fields. The federal government authorized a flood control
project to fix it in 1954, when Dwight Eisenhower was
president. Now finally, construction to bring the area up to
modern flood standards is nearing the final stages. Officials
at the Santa Clara Valley Water District, a government agency
based in San Jose, are embarking on the third and final phase
this month of a $241 million project to improve flood
protection along 13 miles of Llagas Creek. The project recently
received $80 million in federal funding, enough to finish the
work.
A prestigious, international law firm has joined the legal team
representing local groups suing the City of Bakersfield over
how it operates the Kern River. Morrison Foerster is well-known
in environmental advocacy circles for, among other things, its
work on the Mono Lake case that resulted in the “National
Audubon Society v. Superior Court” decision. That ruling
restricted how much water the Los Angeles Department of Water
and Power could divert from streams flowing into Mono Lake
based on the Public Trust doctrine, which holds that the state
owns all natural resources and must put them to the highest
public use, including the environment and public access. The
lawsuit against Bakersfield asserts that the city must study
its Kern River operations through the Public Trust lens, and
not just based on the more than 100 years of court decrees and
agreements amongst rights holders on the river.
California’s fertile farmland — much of it in the San Joaquin
Valley — feeds the nation. But all that farming takes a lot of
water, which continues to dwindle as the state faces the harsh
realities of climate change. With less water to go around and
hotter conditions threatening many legacy crops, farmers are
fallowing more acres and losing hundreds of millions in
revenue. In a study from UC Merced, researchers estimated the
state lost 752,000 acres of irrigated farmland in
2022. Switching to less-thirsty crops could cut
agricultural water consumption in the state by as much as 93%,
researchers with UC Santa Barbara and the NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory reported earlier this year. Now some farmers
are betting big on what they believe could be part of the
solution: agave.
In southwestern Colorado, Greg Vlaming crouched down to look at
dying remains of an oat crop baking under the July sun. It
wasn’t just a dead plant — it was armor, he said. “This
minimizes wind erosion and surface runoff,” said Vlaming, a
soil scientist, consultant and farmer. “Water can’t run off on
something that’s like this.” Vlaming is working alongside the
state, researchers, farmers and ranchers on a newly expanded
soil health program established by the Colorado legislature in
2021. The goal of the program is to nurture soils in order to
reap rewards — like more efficient irrigation, more carbon
storage and healthier crops. But changing long-standing
growing practices can be a risky, expensive challenge for
farmers already dealing with drought and thin margins.
Monday marked the beginning of crews in Mesa starting to remove
grass from dozens of parks and retention basins in an effort to
conserve water. The City of Mesa is removing about five acres
of turf throughout 54 parks and retention basins that
are “non-functional,” meaning it may be close to walls where
people aren’t using the turf for recreation. The city
estimates it’ll save more than 5 million gallons of Colorado
River water a year. To get an idea of what that’d look like,
it’s about 15 football fields covered in a foot of water.
Researchers from San Diego State University and UC San Diego
are back in the Tijuana River Valley after pulling out last
week over health concerns arising from toxic gases they
detected in the air. Last week, they announced a temporary halt
to their work when their monitors detected hydrogen sulfide and
hydrogen cyanide in the air. Citing health concerns,
researchers felt it was in their best interests to leave the
area until further testing could be done. Almost immediately,
the County of San Diego disagreed with the researchers and
quickly released its own data gathered by its own monitors.
The Coachella Valley Water District will pay a penalty of
nearly $237,000 for its role in a 2020 sewage spill that
discharged 128,000 gallons of raw wastewater into a Riverside
County stormwater channel. The penalty was announced by the
State Water Control Board on Monday. According to the
agency, an investigation by the Colorado River Basin Regional
Water Quality Control Board found that one of CVWD’s collection
systems—Water Reclamation Plant No. 10—failed due to a power
outage on Sept. 22, 2020. This caused it to release untreated
wastewater from a manhole for about an hour.
… California Forever is determined to try the ballot again in
2026. … At the heart of the debate lies the company’s most
compelling argument: its promise to bring more housing to the
Bay Area, where developers face significant regulatory hurdles.
It’s an offer that taps into a genuine regional need, even as
it also poses new problems at the local level. Solano
residents, like many Westerners, have reason to be suspicious
of wealthy but distant developers who are disconnected from
local needs, said Kristina Hill, research director of the
Institute of Urban and Regional Development at the University
of California, Berkeley. She noted that some locals might be
attracted by California Forever’s technological optimism, with
its visionary talk of new designs for dense multifamily
housing. At the same time, however, the company’s plans could
impact the local environment and quality of life; the land it
owns includes valuable natural resources, such as vernal pools,
the headwaters of streams and fertile soil for grazing or
agriculture, which provide other tangible benefits for the
community.
… Jennifer Bright is the Chief Philanthropy Director and the
COO of the Nature Collective. The non-profit has been caring
for the lagoon for nearly four decades. “The lagoon has been
closed since the beginning of July, and with that, you don’t
have an influx of water, so the water that is in there isn’t
sustaining itself, and it’s not getting fresh water in from the
Pacific Ocean nor does it have the ability to take any runoff
that is coming from upstream out and that creates a scenario
where we have reduced oxygen levels for the lagoon,” said
Bright. … “Every year, we go out and open the inlet. This
year we had to open it twice, and we were finding the rate of
sand accumulation was higher than it ever has been in the past,
and we were unable to keep up with that,” said Bright. The
recent heat wave also contributed to the lagoon system becoming
hypoxic, which killed fish and other marine life.
… As sunlight filters through the water, mayfly nymphs, no
larger than your fingernail, cling to algae-coated cobbles.
… This scene is common in well-maintained creeks and
streams that flow through populated areas. But when wildfires
sweep through, the toxic materials left behind can devastate
this ecosystem. … Urban conflagrations consume a mix of
synthetic and natural materials, including homes, vehicles,
electronics and household chemicals. This creates a unique
set of problems that can have far-reaching consequences
for waterways and the creatures that call them home. As an
environmental engineer, I study how human actions on land
affect the chemistry and ecology of surface water systems,
including an important group of stream dwellers: benthic
macroinvertebrates. These tiny creatures, which include
mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies, are not only food sources
for fish and other stream life but also serve as nature’s own
water quality monitors. —Written by Lauren Magliozzi, researcher in
environmental engineering at the University of Colorado at
Boulder
… If California can sustain its early progress, there’s good
reason for optimism that the 30×30 goal is attainable. Just in
the past year, California added about 861,000 acres of
grasslands, deserts, freshwater areas and other habitats. It
added 631,000 acres the year before. The biggest gains came
through enhanced protections for about 120,000 acres of federal
lands in the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the
Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument. Almost 40,000 acres
were also added through the state’s first-ever ancestral land
return, funded through a $100 million grant to return land to
Indigenous communities, including acreage belonging to the
Hoopa Valley Tribe in the Klamath River watershed. Additional
efforts are underway to add lands in Coachella Valley and near
Joshua Tree National Park.
The state Water Resources Control Board exceeded its authority,
operated under a web of “underground regulations” and made
unlawful demands of Kings County water managers, according to
a preliminary injunction that is a near total
repudiation of state actions in its attempt to reign in
excessive groundwater pumping. … Probation would have
meant farmers pumping 500 acre feet or more a year would have
had to meter and register their wells at $300 each, report
extractions and pay $20 per acre foot pumped. That is on top of
what farmers already pay their water districts and groundwater
sustainability agencies. If deficiencies noted in the region’s
groundwater plan couldn’t be fixed to the Water Board’s
satisfaction within a year, the state would establish its own
pumping limits. … Those requirements are now all paused under
the injunction until the trial is concluded. The next
hearing is set for Jan. 10, 2025.
A low pressure system moving into the West Coast today will
bring rare early-season snow and rain to California through
Monday. “A winter weather advisory is in effect for portions of
the Sierra Nevada above 8,000 feet where up to 4 inches of snow
could fall tonight and Monday,” the National Weather Service
office in Hanford said. Visitors to Yosemite National Park may
encounter snow as they drive through the park. Up to 2 inches
of snow is possible from Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Pass, one
of the main thoroughfares in the park.
Endangered frogs snatched as tadpoles from fire-ravaged
mountains above Los Angeles in 2020 were returned home last
year in a moment of hope and excitement. But the California
amphibians are once again in the line of fire and another
rescue mission could be in the cards. Massive wildfires are
raging through the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains —
two of the three ranges where Southern California mountain
yellow-legged frogs eke out a fragile existence in a handful of
isolated streams. As of Saturday, the fires had chewed through
more than 90,000 acres and there is worry the flames may be
encroaching on the frog’s critical habitat. The federally
endangered frogs are “a high priority because these fires are
in the only known locations” for the species, said Hans Sin, a
biologist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s
South Coast region. The San Jacinto Mountains, in Riverside
County, are their only other hopping grounds.
Former President Donald Trump promised Californians
unprecedented access to water and reduced protections for a key
fish species if he is reelected. Speaking at a press conference
at the golf club he owns near Los Angeles, Trump said farmers
in the Golden State have as much as 1,000 acres of “barren and
dead and dark” land for every acre of usable land, while houses
in wealthy areas get small amounts of water to use. He blamed
it on protections for the delta smelt, a small endangered fish
species that lives in the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta,
and said Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) blocked efforts during his
previous time in the White House to ease the smelt’s
protections.
Beneath the warm sun of the San Joaquin Valley, crews with
heavy machinery have spent the past two months moving heaps of
gravel into the cool waters of the Tuolumne River. The work, in
rural Stanislaus County, marks an unlikely partnership between
the city of San Francisco and two large irrigation districts to
try to revive the river’s struggling salmon population. The
gravel bars and riffles being fashioned in the lower reaches of
the waterway are expected to help the renowned fish spawn. San
Francisco and the Turlock and Modesto irrigation districts have
long relied on the Tuolumne for water supplies, and they’ve
often fought over who gets what. But now the three parties are
working in tandem to save the fish that are close to being
wiped out in large part because of the water draws.
A federal judge is weighing whether to impose a preliminary
injunction on a Northern California county facing a class
action on claims it restricts water access for Asian Americans.
Four Siskiyou County residents claim that a county ordinance is
discriminatory against Asian Americans, who in some cases are
forced to use bottled water. White residents don’t face the
same discrimination. In one case, someone provided up to 4,000
gallons of water to another with no county intervention, said
attorney John Do, who represents the plaintiffs, at a Friday
hearing.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is demanding that state
water officials revoke a deep water well drilling permit issued
to a controversial Saudi Arabian company in rural Arizona. The
Arizona Department of Water Resources in July authorized
Fondomonte to drill a new well for irrigation on the company’s
private land in La Paz County, state records show. The company
previously gained notoriety for its leasing of several tracts
of state land in western Arizona where it had been allowed to
pump groundwater unchecked. One of those leases was canceled by
the State Land Department and 2023, and three others expired
earlier this year. … Mayes’ missive brought a heated
response that evening from the office of Buschatzke’s boss,
Gov. Katie Hobbs. A spokesperson called it “empty
grandstanding” and said Mayes’ earlier rhetoric had been cited
in Fondomonte’s legal appeal of the cancellation of its leases.
